W. Griffin - The shooters

"Butch Cassidy? The Sundance Kid?" Castillo asked, sarcastically.

Pevsner shook his head. "They were in Bolivia."

"I didn't know you were such a history buff, Alek."

Pevsner looked into Castillo's eyes for a long moment.

"What I am, friend Charley, is a man who would like to build a future for his children that would be unconnected with their father's past. I am more than a little jealous of Herr Schmidt."

Castillo looked at him but didn't reply.

Jesus Christ, he's serious.

Where's he going with this?

"You're a father, you will understand," Pevsner went on.

Actually, Alek, I'm having a hard time accepting that I am a father.

But, yeah. I understand.

"I think so," Castillo said.

"I never thought-I am a pragmatist-that I could do what Herr Schmidt did. These are different times. But I did think that I could perhaps do something like it. Did you see The Godfather?"

Now what?

Castillo nodded.

"I thought I could do something like young Michael Corleone wanted to do: Go completely legitimate. You remember that part?"

Castillo nodded again.

"I reasoned that if I gave up the more profitable aspects of my businesses-really gave them up-and maintained what you would call a low profile here-"

"I get the picture," Castillo interrupted.

"Not quite, I don't think, friend Charley. And I think it's important that you do."

"Go ahead."

"I have been using you since you came into my life, sometimes successfully, sometimes at a price. You recall how we met, Herr Gossinger?"

"On the Cobenzl in Vienna," Castillo said. "I thought you had stolen an airplane."

"You came very close to dying that night, friend Charley. When I heard that you wanted to interview me, I thought I would send a message to the press that looking into my affairs was not acceptable and was indeed very dangerous."

I believe him.

But why is he bringing that up now?

"But then Howard found out that you were really an American intelligence officer-Kennedy was very good at what he did; it's sad he turned out to be so weak and greedy-and you were using the name Karl Gossinger as a cover.

"I found that interesting. So I decided to meet you in person. And when you suggested that-I love this American phrase-we could scratch each other's back, I went along, to see where that would go-"

"Cutting to the chase," Castillo interrupted, "I would never have found that 727 without you. And I made good on my promise. I got the CIA and the FBI off your back."

"So you did, proving yourself intelligent, capable, and a man of your word."

"I'm going to blush if you keep this up."

"You'll remember certainly that the Southern Cone, especially Argentina, never came up in Vienna. You found the 727 where I told you it would be, in Central America."

"Yeah, I remember."

"When that transaction between us was over, I thought it had gone extraordinarily well. You got what you wanted. And I got what I wanted, the CIA and the FBI to leave me alone. Which was very important to me, as I was already establishing myself here and-being pragmatic-I knew that if they were still looking for me, they would have inevitably found me."

"And then I showed up here," Castillo said.

Pevsner nodded.

"Now that we both know who Howard Kennedy really was," Pevsner went on, "I don't think it is surprising that when you bumped into Howard in the elevator at the Four Seasons, his first reaction was to suggest to me that we had made a mistake in Vienna and it was now obviously the time to rectify that omission."

You mean, whack me.

"He suggested we could have our Russian friends do it, so there would be no connection with me. My initial reaction was to go along-I naturally thought that you had turned on me, and had come here to demand something of me.

"But, again, I was curious, and told Howard that that would wait until we learned what you wanted from me. So I told Howard to put a bag over your head and bring you out to my house in Buena Vista in Pilar. The bag offended you. I understood. So I told Howard to bring you anyway. You could be dealt with at Buena Vista.

"While I was waiting for you, I realized that I was really sorry I had misjudged you and regretted that I would have to deal with the problem. The strange truth seemed to be that I liked you more than I knew I should."

Giving me an "Indian beauty mark" in the center of my forehead with a small-caliber, soft-nose pistol bullet…that's how you were going to "deal with the problem."

"If you try to kiss me, Alek, I'll kick your scrotum over the chandelier."

"You are…impossible!" Pevsner said.

"But lovable."

Pevsner shook his head in disbelief.

"I often function on intuition. I knew when I looked into your eyes that you were telling me the truth about your reason for being in Argentina, that not only didn't you want anything from me but you had no idea I was in Argentina."

"Oh, but I did. I wanted to borrow your helicopter."

"That came later," Pevsner said, somewhat impatiently. "What happened at the time was that I decided we were friends. I have very few friends. Howard was a trusted employee-my mistake-but I never thought of him as my friend. I trust my friends completely. So I introduced you to my family. Anna liked you from the moment you met. So I decided to help you find-and possibly assist in getting back-the kidnapped wife of the American diplomat. Alfredo was then working for me; it wouldn't take much effort on my part.

"That night, I asked Anna whether she thought I had made a mistake about you. She thought not. She said, 'He's very much like you.'"

"I thought you said she liked me."

"Why do you always have to mock me?"

"Because it always pisses you off?"

Pevsner, smiling despite himself, shook his head.

"The next morning, you met Alfredo on your way to where Pavel Primakov's people had left Masterson's body."

"Whose people?"

"Colonel-I've heard he's actually a colonel general-Pavel Primakov is the FSB's senior man for South America. You did know they were responsible for the murder of Masterson, didn't you?"

"I had no proof and no names. But there was no question in Billy Kocian's mind that the FSB was responsible, trying to cover Putin's involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food cesspool."

"The proof of that would seem to be what they tried to do with Kocian on the Szabadsag hid, wouldn't you say?"

An attempt to kidnap-or, failing that, murder-Eric Kocian on the Liberty Bridge in Budapest had been thwarted by his bodyguard, Sandor Tor, and by Max, whose gleaming white teeth had caused severe muscular trauma to one of the triggermen's arms.

"Point taken," Castillo said.

"Where is the old man now?"

"In Washington."

"The FSB wants him dead-to get ahead of myself-about as much as they do you."

"The last time I talked to Billy, he complained that he was being followed around by deaf men wearing large hearing aids who kept talking into their lapels."

It took a moment for Pevsner to form the mental picture. Then he smiled. "Good men, I hope."

"The best. Secret Service. Most of them are on, or were on, the President's protection detail."

"Getting back where we were, friend Charley," Pevsner went on, "I asked Alfredo what he thought of you and his response was unusual. He said that he felt you were a lot more competent than your looks-and your behavior-suggested, and that, strangely, he felt you were one of the very few men he trusted instinctively.

"You proved your competence almost immediately by finding Lorimer on his estancia, getting there with your men before Major Vincenzo and his men did-and they had been looking for him for some time-and then, of course, by effectively dealing with Vincenzo."